


His World

by Anonymous



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Depression, Healing, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Other, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, This is really sad, but there's some hope at the end!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:13:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29859309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Filip, like many children, was overeager, and happy.But soon, Filip realises that what he thought was normal, the very basis of his world, is in fact, the very thing that makes him break into cold sweats and gives him nightmare.*This was written for a school project, please be kind.TW:Incest (Father/Son)Non Con, Rape, Child Abuse (Father abuses child)Depression
Collections: Anonymous Fics





	His World

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a school project, which I am 1000% done with. This was excrutiating, but I hope some of you will enjoy it.

_ “There are times when explanations, no matter how reasonable, just don’t seem to help.” _

_ -Fred Rogers  _

Filip liked bright colors and spontaneity, messes and miscellaneous objects that had no purpose. Filip, like many children, got high off of diabetic happy endings and rainbows that carried you off to dreamland. He thought, for a long time, that his view of the world was the same as his friends. That despite the colors and messes and everything, everyone had a little trap door in their world. 

When Filip was thirteen and overeager, and bright, and full of knots in his stomach, he understood that he didn’t come from the same world as them. That not everyone had the same trap door as him. 

His friends, who were just as eager and bright as him, crowd around the bedroom floor in a half circle, sharing secrets and stories. The red carpet felt a little stiff underneath their legs, with the threads poking at their hands uncomfortably. The tallest one, Corey, smirked almost devilishly. 

With a loud, booming voice, Corey asked, “Did you know Alex lost his virginity?” 

At first, a deafening silence crowded Filip’s ears, and when he blinked, his friends’ stuttered laughter echoed in the dim lit room. Josh and Samuel snorted, a noise a little bit similar to that of pigs. 

“Who says we believe him?” Josh challenged. 

“Alison’s friend, the girl he had sex with, told me,” Corey answered certainly. “Alison told her friends, who then told a lot of other people.” He snickered. “Now, Alison and Alex are in deep shit with their parents.” 

Filip had the deep urge to crawl up somewhere dark and cold, where no one would think to look for him. Somewhere unimaginable. Somewhere other-wordly. 

“But that’s so weird,” Samuel pondered. “We’re still so young… Like, what’s the rush? And isn’t it a little bit dumb of her freinds to just talk about somehing so personal like that to everyone?” 

Corey laughed again, the sort of cackling sound that reminded Filip of heavy stones falling down on pebbles. “You’re just jealous,” he mused innocently. “You can’t even get a single girl in our grade to look at you.”

“Have you even started masturbating?” Josh asked too loudly, followed by the cackling of Corey and Josh. Filip feared they would fall over from how hard they were laughing. 

He wished he could laugh like them, but a heavy, cold stone settled deeply in his stomach, twisting the knots that never went away. 

Corey’s dark, glistening eyes met Filip’s, a sly smile settling over him. “What about you, Filip?” Corey asked, quirking one eyebrow upwards. “Do you think Alex is a creep or are you hoping to be next?” 

He could feel his palms pool with sweat. Too conscious of his too long arms, too long legs, overgrown limbs, too much  _ everything _ , Filip dragged his hands through the carpet on the floor, threads sticking to the downside of his palms. He tried to pull his knees up to his chest, but his lower body felt too heavy to move.

“I- I don’t know… I guess I don’t really care? It’s n-not my business anyways, so…” 

“But you need to have some sort of opinion!” whined Josh. “Like, are you jealous or not?” 

Filip tried to shrug as casually as possible, but he swore he could feel the bones of his shoulders poke his neck in all the wrong places. 

“I really don’t know. M-maybe he felt pressured?” 

He wasn’t sure where the idea came from, but later, he’d remember a little something called a  _ subconscious.  _

Silence took over the room, but what troubled Filip the most were the three pairs of eyes on him. Wide, big, baby-doe eyes staring right into his trembling bony shoulders, the lump in his throat, the sweaty palms holding onto the carpet for dear life, they  _ must’ve _ seen it all. 

And then, there was laughter. All of them. Loud, carefree glee. 

“Are you serious?” Corey said in between fits. “Pressured? And who the fuck would pressure Alex into having sex? Let me guess, Alison?” 

“S-she’s older than him…” Filip tried weakly. 

“Yeah,” Corey snorted, “by a  _ year _ . That’s like, nothing!” He gave Filip a look, like he was observing a small rodent behind glass, towering over him. “God, you’re so  _ weird _ .” 

Corey laughed again, the sound sending daggers in Filip’s chest. 

“Alex would know better than to be pressured,” Corey said with too much disinterest. “If I told you to give me a blowjob right now, would you do it?” 

Filip’s tongue felt too heavy in his mouth, too much saliva pooling underneath his stoned tongue, he thought he might choke. 

“No, you wouldn’t,” Corey continued. “Because you would know better.” And then he snapped his fingers, as though an epiphany had graced itself upon him. “Or maybe you wouldn’t know. Who knows what you’re thinking half the time, Filip.” 

He wanted to argue, to scream, but he didn’t trust himself to speak right now. So he kept quiet and somehow managed to control his hands from not ripping at the carpet.

“I’d know better,” he settled on. 

Maybe he should’ve kept quiet. 

It felt as much of a lie coming out of his mouth as what it was, and it was so painstakingly clear on the other kids’ faces that they knew it too. 

Maybe they knew everything. 

Maybe Filip knew nothing.

Afterall, he didn’t feel like much of anything anyway.

On monday at school, neither Corey or Samuel or Josh talked to him. When he tried to go up to them, he just felt small, 

“Sorry Filip, I just don’t want to be friends with a gay.”

Insignificant, 

“Who knows what you’re into.”

Disposable, 

“You’re too weird. Bye.”

And indecent,

“Have a nice life, faggot.” 

Feelings are a funny thing, Filip decided. He couldn’t understand it, this hollow loneliness creeping behind  _ everything _ . He couldn’t grab it, fight it, see it. He couldn’t do anything. 

So Filip allowed himself to bath in that nothingness and allow himself to be nothing with it. 

* * *

When Filip was four, his father took his little chubby cheeks in his hands, caressing them. “You’re too pretty,” he said. “Too pretty for a boy.” 

Filip doesn’t remember it. Well, that’s a lie, he does remember it, but he doesn’t want to  _ think  _ about it. Because if he did, then he could remember the feeling on his father’s big sweaty hands on his cheeks, and the hair on his father's fingers, the uncut nails that yellowed at the edge. 

“Eyes just like your mothers.” 

Filip never liked his father’s hand, the way they were made didn’t look nice and gentle like his mother’s, but then again, he hadn't seen his mother in a long time, and he didn’t know if he’d ever see her again, so it was better not to think about it, but now he was thinking about it, and he couldn’t, he couldn’t, he couldn't, he couldn’thecouldn’thecouldn’t, he couldn’t-

When he steadied his breathing, his hands balled into fist on the living room carpet. His nails had dug little crescents on his palms. 

His father called his name from upstairs. Filip went up. 

  
  


* * *

No one talked to him anymore, and Filip didn’t try to talk to anyone either. That was fine. 

Everything was fine. 

There were rumors now. About him, and made up people that he didn’t know, but whom everyone else was convinced existed. He didn’t try to correct people that went around whispering their assumptions about him, because it was his word against Corey’s, Josh’s, and Samuel’s. His own version of events wouldn’t matter anyways, not when he was alone in his point of view. 

Besides, a small part of Filip knew that these rumors weren’t exactly unfounded and untrue. So, in a way, the rumors were right, but at the same time, they were wrong as well. 

It was all so confusing. Filip wished he didn’t have to think all the time. 

_ Who knows what you’re thinking half the time, Filip. _

He knew. 

Filip knew what he was thinking. But sometimes, Filip wished he didn’t always know what he was thinking. It’s just that sometimes, he was stuck with thoughts from yesterday while simultaneously thinking about other things. There was always something to analyse, to look at, the freak out about, and his brain often finished doing the thinking part before he was actually ready. It was a race against himself and his thoughts. For some reason, the entire  _ thing  _ scared him. 

But Filip didn’t really know what he was afraid of. Telling someone? But wasn’t that something he should maybe do? But that felt… wrong? Disloyal? 

His father had said that in their own little world, it was just the two of them, and no one outside their world would understand. Maybe that was why Filip didn’t want to tell anyone, because they wouldn’t understand. But he didn’t talk about it with his father either. That also felt… bad. But his father would understand though, and he was allowed to talk to his dad, so why couldn’t he just make his mind? 

A lot of things felt bad. 

Too much. 

All the time. 

* * *

There was this one teacher at school. 

Filip didn’t see her a lot because she taught different classes, but she just seemed lovable, and everyone seemed to like her. She was young, and she always smiled at everyone, even if they didn’t smile back. 

These days, Filip found it hard to smile. His cheeks often felt heavy whenever he tried lifting them up. It wasn’t as though his father was being particularly mean. Sure, he got a bit mad sometimes for no reason except for something Filip had unintentionally done, but it wasn’t bad.

His father didn’t hit him. So there was absolutely nothing to ponder about. 

If anything, his dad probably just practiced ‘tough love’, being the gruff, sweaty giant he was. He even hired a tutor for Filip when he wasn’t doing as well in certain classes. If he did that, then of course it meant that he was a good person, a good dad. 

There probably wasn’t even a good reason as to why Filip felt the way he did. Even when he forced himself to believe nothing was wrong, sleep came as a rarity these days. 

His thoughts were too loud to let him sleep. 

He looked to his father’s sleeping face, drool catching on the pillow. His lower back ached, and his limbs felt heavy, dried sweat sticking uncomfortably. 

_ You’re too weird. Bye. _

_ Who knows what you’re thinking half the time, Filip. _

It was just all in his head. 

  
  


* * *

Sometime in the middle of the year, their homeroom teacher said that the library needed extra help and that it could count as extra credit. No one wanted to do it because the librarian (if he could even be called that) never did his job, so all the books were unorganised, and dusty, and it was just too much of hassle. There were plenty of more attractive activities. 

Filip volunteered in the library, so that he could skip lunch and not have to hide at the back of the cafeteria or in the bathroom, if the whispers were too much. 

There were mundane tasks, but it gave him something to do, so he couldn’t have much of an opinion on it. He kind of felt bad that he was starting to care less and less about these boring things that he  _ should _ reflect about, but it wasn’t as though anyone needed to know. 

No one knew. Everyone just assumed. But Filip wondered why no one had assumed the worst yet. Maybe they weren’t as smart as they thought. Or maybe he was just crazy. Maybe he was just overreacting. 

In the library, no one really bothered him. No one came. He was alone. But Filip didn’t really feel bad about it. At least, he thought, here he chose to be lonely. There was something warm and comforting about knowing that he still had small choices like that. 

Oneday, the teacher that always smiled came and asked him if he could help her unload some boxes filled with books from her car, seeing as the librarian wasn’t there. He said yes, and walked back and forth with her with heavy cardboard boxes in their arms. 

As he started sorting the books out and putting them in their rows, he realised nearly all the books were poetry books. 

“No one reads poetry,” he told her, because he felt bad that she was giving away so many books and that they’d never be read. It was such a waste. 

She laughed, light and breathy. A bit like a chirping bird. “You don’t know that,” she said as they unloaded her car, “maybe someone will read.”

“But who?” 

“You could, if you wanted to.” 

He didn’t really want to read poetry books. He felt like the poems they studied in English class were boring and long and never made sense. But saying ‘no’ never did him any good, at least not with his father, so he just nodded and continued stacking the books in alphabetical order in silence. Well, he tried to be silent. 

But the teacher just kept talking, and talking, and talking, and asking him questions. Filip didn’t think he talked that much in a very, very long time. 

His father always said that their little world didn’t need words. Just touches. And no lies. Filip felt like that last rule applied more to himself than his father. 

“How old are you, Filip?” she asked. 

“Thirteen.” 

“Oh woah, you’re quite tall for your age. Are your parents tall?” 

“My dad is.” 

“And what does your dad do?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Your mother?” 

“I don’t know.” He dusted a book. “Her,” he added.

Like the books and the library and everything else, her attempt at small talk was insignificant and useless. Maybe his disate for the questions showed, because she stopped talking altogether after a while. 

He didn’t see the teacher as often anymore, but she still dropped by the library every now and then. So Filip started taking home poetry books at random and pretended to be half interested in them just so she wouldn’t… get mad? Tell his father? Hit him? 

She was a teacher, she wouldn’t hit him. But she could tell his father he wasn’t being respectful. Yet, she wasn’t his teacher for anything. He just took the books in case. 

* * *

There was this one poem that did grab his attention. 

_ ‘It seems only yesterday I used to believe,  _

_ there was nothing under my skin but light. _

_ If you cut me I would shine.  _

_ But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life, _

_ I skin my knees. I bleed.’ _

_ \--- Billy Collins  _

Filip wondered when he stopped being overeager, and bright. Maybe he never was. Maybe he would never be anything. Maybe, in his father’s little, concentrated world, it was fine. He could be nothing. 

  
  


* * *

When Filip was seven, his father’s grip around his face tightened. His hands left purple bruises around his hips. He couldn’t sit down for a while. He still can’t sit down for a while. He always gets antsy and his legs feel like they have ants crawling inside of him. 

_ I could just eat you up.  _

_ I should wrap you tight and never leave you.  _

His father said that no one else understood him like he did, that he was the only one he could share his pain with. It was selfish, but Filip didn’t want any of that pain. When he told his father that, he was already crying, with his nose drooling snot and eyes blotchy with tears. 

The first slap came. 

It caught both of them off guard, and it took a long moment for Filip to register the sting against his cheek, palming it with a trembling hand as his father stuttered out excuses after excuses, his own eyes puffy from crying. 

His father never liked to hit him. 

So he when he  _ really  _ needed to, he just kept it around his hips and thighs where no one would see. He just kept it all in their little world. 

His dad promised that he really did love him. And that he loved him too much, and that was the problem, that if Filip wasn’t himself, he wouldn’t love him so much. 

But it was all fine, because they were fine, and their world was fine, and it was just  _ fine _ . 

His father never liked to hit him. The first slap had been an accident,  _ he swore,  _ and he’d spent the night with tears stabbing the side of Filip’s neck as he held him in his lap. 

Yet, when Filip asked if his mother would ever come back, veins had popped on his father’s forehead, his entire neck red as blood flushed his face. 

_ Don’t you dare talk about her.  _

_ Why would I need her when I have you? _

If having his mother home could relieve just a tiny bit of the pressure of his father’s body against his own, then Filip would’ve welcomed like a good boy with open arms. But she never came, and his father never talked about her. She wasn’t even a ghost missing at the dinner table anymore she was just gone. 

His father kept saying that he never meant to hurt Filip, and that he was  _ so, so, so, so very sorry, I really am, I’m so sorry, but you can’t say these things Filip, you hurt me just as much when you do these things, and I need to discipline you, but I don’t want to hurt, I swear.  _

In their little world, everything was fine. His father loved him and was only looking out for him.

Filip pretended to believe him. 

* * *

Sometimes, Filip liked to pretend that he told someone all the heavy pebbles on his chest. That someone, it could be anyone. The teacher that smiled, a random student, the principal, a waiter at a restaurant, just  _ anyone _ . And then he liked to pretend that someone would listen and do something. And then his father would go away forever. 

It was so horrible. The most recurring thought was that his father would die. That he’d be found in the grey bathtub with his wrists slit and a note saying he felt too horrible, too disgusted with himself for all he ever did to Filip to keep living with himself. He wondered if that happened, if the police would contact his mother, wherever she was. And if she would come. If she still cared. 

And then Filip would go to college and be able to talk to people, actual people. He’d get over his uneasiness of girls and maybe start dating like a normal person. 

But the thing was, Filip wasn’t a normal person.

The only thing he could do was exist in his father’s arms and let the black swallow everything else. 

* * *

It was the last day of his middle school career, and while everyone was making plans and talking excitedly about finally being able to sleep in as much as they wanted, Filip kept himself inside the library, rearranging books one last time before they were bound to be left unsupervised for two whole months. 

He was returning the last of the poetry books he’d borrowed when the smiling teacher came. She held a cardboard box in her hands, smaller than the ones she’d used to carry all her books. She handed it over to Filip, who took it with uncertain hands. 

“I would’ve wrapped it,” she said, “but I ran out of gift paper, and the idea came to me last minute.” 

She nudged his shoulder for him to open the box. 

Bregundgly, Filip opened the box, finding a collection of fiction and non-fiction books.

“Since poetry isn’t your favorite genre, I figured you’d enjoy these a little more,” she said. She took out the first book from the top, its cover worn on the sides and the pages yellowed. “I’d start with this one,” she recommended, “it’s my favorite.” 

She smiled at him one last time, though it felt like there was something a little more forced, a little more strained about this particular smile. Unlike all her other smiles, this one didn’t reach her eyes. 

“Have a good summer, Filip. You deserve it.” 

After his father passed out on the sofa, soft snores filling in the silence inside the house, Filip walked quietly over to the cardboard box, taking out the first book. 

Inside the bood, between the first two pages, there was a small pamphlet. 

  
  


_ UN’s Sustainable Goals,  _

_ Goal 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions _

_ Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.  _

_ One of the many goals we hope to achieve in order to make the world a safer, better place is to reduce all violence and exploitation against children.  _

_ The facts:  _

  * _1 in 3 students has been bullied by their peers at school in the last month, and at least 1 in 10 children have experienced cyberbullying_


  * Child online sexual abuse reports to NCMEC has grown from 1 million in 2014 to 45 million in 2018


  * 1 in 10 children is sexually abused before the age of 18


  * 50% of the world’s children experience violence every year.



_ Help stop violence against children today.  _

_ www.un.org _

Stuck behind the pamphlet, was a yellow postit note with a phone number, the corner smudged with black ink. 

_ What if he sees?  _

A sudden fear settled down in Filip, making the never ending knots in his stomach twist painfully. He snapped his head to the side, looking carefully at his father’s face, still asleep. He hurried to the kitchen, digging trash out, throwing the pamphlet inside, before putting all the trash back in, even adding a few more wet paper towels in hopes to cover his tracks. 

The yellow note had stuck on the cover of the book in his hurry to throw the pamphlet away. With clammy hands, and his heart beating so loudly Filip was shocked his father hand’t woke, he took the note and hid it away.

* * *

Maybe his bad luck had finally subdued. Maybe it worsened. But anyhow, something happened, something different, and Filip couldn’t quite feel his hands anymore. 

It was an accident. It probably could’ve happened to anyone. But the cops don’t seem to think so. 

Filip is twenty four now, though sometimes he still feels like twelve. His dad doesn’t let him go outside unless he knows where’s going and he’s sure that Filip will be back by six. It’s not too bad, but despite being out of college, and supposedly being an adult, his dad doesn’t let him think much about it. 

Convincing his dad to let him move out was an entire ordeal. There were some shouts. And then his dad was shoving him. 

He doesn’t know what happens next. The cops tell him at some point he hit his head against something, which is why he tastes copper in his mouth. They think that he used one of the abandoned beer bottles from the table to stab his dad. It makes sense to them, because his fingerprints are all over the glass, and there’s blood all over his shirt. 

They tell him to confess. 

But Filip doesn’t feel his mouth move. He can’t feel his hands. 

He asks if they can let him borrow a clean shirt. 

He doesn’t know how to talk to them. He doesn’t know what to tell them. He doesn’ know why he didn’t call them sooner. Or why he didn’t just leave the apartment when it was clear his father was so intoxicated. 

They keep him and keep alternating between the holding cell and the interrogation room. The police grow more and more frustrated by his silence, his lack of ‘cooperativeness’. They keep saying that all of this will look bad in court.

But Filip can’t speak. 

Because then, the cops would realise he wasn’t normal, he wasn’t part of the same world as them. They would realise what an idiot he was, for letting his father convince him for so long, even in his adult age. 

He feels shameful, like claws threatening to come out his mouth if he opens it. 

At one point, one cop takes his partner outside the interrogation room, leaving Filip all alone. They’re gone for a very long time, so Filip busies himself with counting down the seconds. 

When he reaches seven hundred-eighty-two, the two cops come back, and they look more calm, their eyes are clear and they seem kinder. 

They tell him they found pictures and security cameras in his house, the ones his father had placed after they’d gotten robbed that one time six years ago. They also tell him they found his father’s journal, the one he kept after his mother left them and he hid under a floorboard out of paranoia. 

It’s a shut and opened investigation, so they send him home, tell him to cool down, and that they’ll be in touch. 

Turns out, being in touch consists of sending him to see a therapist three times a week. 

His therapist is a little woman with big bright wooden necklaces that matches big heavy plastic earrings. She wears long dresses that reach past her feet, and her voice is high and gruff at the same time. She tells him that she helps people like him, people who were stuck in another world against their own will, and she’s here to help him reintegrate ‘the normal world.’ 

She says she can help him. 

Filip pretends to believe her. 

* * *

When the cops finally allow him to gather his belongings from the house, they give him a sparse suitcase, and ask him not to enter the kitchen, or look at the couch. Apparently, they couldn’t get all of the blood to wash away, and they’ll need to hire some specialists if he wants to put the house on the market. 

As he’s putting away battered copies of books and ill-fitting clothes, he moves the wardrobe from its spot, crawls on his stomach, and peels something from the underside. 

The yellow note has long faded and lost it’s bright yellow, but the black ink of the phone number held on. It’s a little brown, but it’s there. 

With a lot of uncertainty and fear, Filip takes it, and let’s himself feel the weight of it in his pocket. 

He doesn’t know why he hesitates in taking the note. He’s still not used to the fact that his father isn’t here, that he can’t stop him from doing anything anymore. 

The therapist said it’d take some time to get used to, but Filip highly doubts that’ll he ever be able to forget the ghost of his father’s touch. 

Still, the note that used to weigh heavily in his hands whenever he had the strength to hold it and stare at it, now rests comfortably in his pockets. 

Not quite hidden, but not quite fully seen either. 

* * *

Filip had known, for a very long time now, that he wasn’t part of the same world as other people. That any trace of normality had long since been extinguished the moment his father started becoming overbearing and everything Filip was forced to love and hate at the same time. 

Any thoughts of escapism had perished as well, and sometimes, when the covers of his single bed become too heavy and the air around him is suffocating, he still believes that he’s a trapped little mouse in a trap that hasn’t either released or killed him. 

But in those moments, the note stored securely in his drawer and the familiar voice on the other line are there, like a constant. 

And sometimes, Filip doesn’t have to pretend to believe her, because he does. 

  
  
  
  
  


  
  



End file.
